Monthly Archive for December, 2001

: December, 2001

Columbia narrowly snuck details about its tech campus proposal out yesterday [1] before today’s deadline for RFPs. After which all contenders must remain silent. To make up for the procrastination, however, the university threw a quote from The Atlantic into the last slide of its executive summary. Something about human progress, social innovation yadda yadda economic growth?

Stanford and Cornell, who is partnering with Israel’s Technion, have both shown the world their specs, which take the city up on its offer to build an engineering mecca on Roosevelt Island. But like NYU, Columbia is opting for a different location, one that it’s already developing: Manhattanville.

There a few things that set Resorts World Casino, which opens its doors at 1 p.m. today, apart from its Las Vegas brethren. First of all: it’s in Queens, which means its New York City’s first casino. Secondly, it might technically be a “racino” since its connected to the Aqueduct racetrack in South Ozone Park. But what really distinguishes the joint–which features 5,000 gambling terminals, 6,500 parking spaces, Chinese dim sum, and the Asian dice game sic bo–is the robots [1]. [2]

When Erica Lefevre took the microphone outside One Police Plaza at a press conference shortly after noon today, the clearly stricken woman spoke first about what a talented artist her son had been, and how he had left his native Canada to make an impact on the art world of New York City.

“His work is in museums in Toronto and his native home of Montreal,” she said, her voice trembling with a mix of pride and sadness, knowing he would never paint again.

While riding his bicycle home from his studio last Wednesday night, 30-year-old Mathieu Lefevre was struck by a truck and killed on the corner of Meserole Street and Morgan Avenue in Bushwick. The driver, who apparently claims not to have seen or known what was happening and will not be charged in Lefevre’s death.

Other than that sketchy information, Lefevre’s parents and his ex-wife Juliana Berger, have no knowledge of what occurred, and after a week of questions to the NYPD they have had no further answers, or solace.

“What compounds this tragedy is a failure to get information from the police about what happened to our son,” said Ms. Lefevre. [1]

Longtime Assemblyman and Kings County Democratic leader Vito Lopez married the Brooklyn Democratic Party with the Occupy Wall Street protests yesterday, leading a delegation of supporters, political allies, unions and community groups over the Brooklyn Bridge to make common cause with the demonstrations [1]. [2]

Education startups [1] aren’t the only ones trying to disrupt the system. New York City itself is borrowing some of the principles from the startup world– like user-centric design, innovation labs, beta testing–to see if the can change the lagging system from within.

The challenge of the Innovation Zone, or iZone project is think beyond the status quo. Since the project has more meaningful problems to contend, we’ll try not to harp on the derivative nickname. [2]

The President started a Tumblr today [1], another arrow in the old social media quiver leading into the 2012 campaign.

According to his Hello, World post, “We’d like this Tumblr to be a huge collaborative storytelling effort—a place for people across the country to share what’s going on in our respective corners of it and how we’re getting involved in this campaign to keep making it better.” [2]

When Jay Walder resigned from the M.T.A. earlier this year, the transportation community was mortified. Here was their messiah leaving for Hong Kong, his work barely begun. Transit wonks could hardly fathom who could take over for Mr. Walder, continuing his formidable task of transforming the agency in ways both subtle—cutting $4 billion in waste and efficiencies—and not—underground cellphones, Oyster cards, Bus Rapid Transit.

As has been rumored since talk began that Chris Ward would be departing the Port Authority [1] some time this year, the Cuomo administration is poised to announce Patrick Foye will be taking over the bi-state agency [2] as executive director, The Journal reports. [3]

These days, Susan Chin is moving at breakneck speed. “I can barely fit this in,” she lamented when The Observer rang her in early October, just days before she took her post as the executive director at the Design Trust for Public Space, a forward-thinking nonprofit that links private development projects with community needs.

The “this” she is referring to wasn’t even an interview; it was the call to try to organize a time for the interview. [1]

With less than two weeks until the deadline for the RFP, universities are ready to pull out the show-stoppers. Cornell just threw the process (and Betabeat!) for a loop by announcing that it would be partnering with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in its bid.

Early on, Technion was rumored to be a favorite [1]–along with Cornell and Stanford. Although it all depends on what’s proposed, the prospect of two frontrunners combining their efforts has to set the playing field off-kilter. Suri Kasirer, Cornell’s power lobbyist, and BerlinRosen, its PR firm hired especially for the occasion of the chance to build on city-owned land, certainly know how to make an announcement. [2]